122 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
I would here remark for the sake of precision, that 
the clay on which the experiment was tried was of a 
stiff, adhesive character; containing very little, if any, 
silicious matter. It containsa bout 90 per cent of alu¬ 
mina and 10 of vegetable and earthy matter. Now is 
the success of my experiment owing to my sowing at 
the time of full moon in April, or to the fact that it was 
sown early in the season, or to the wetness or dryness 
of the season immediately following, or to the absence 
of snow last winter. In order to test the question tho¬ 
roughly, let eight individuals of leisure, and of moderate 
acquaintance with science, (one in each senate district) 
provide themselves with a thermometer and barometer 
and rain gauge. Let them also provide themselves 
with a book ruled for the purpose, and commencing on 
the first day of January next, note in it at 8 A. M., 1 P. 
M. and 8 P. M.; the state of the thermometer, barome¬ 
ter, and the direction of the wind and the state of the 
sky with reference to clearness and cloudiness; let the 
figure 0 represent entire clearness, and 10 entire cloudi¬ 
ness; if the sky is half covered with clouds and half 
clear, let it be represented by 5, &c.; and let them each 
day add a note respecting the general appearance of 
the weather, or any thing in nature affected by the wea¬ 
ther. Whenever it rains, let them carefully note the 
number of inches and parts of an inch that has fallen; 
when it snows, let them be careful to select a level 
piece of ground sheltered from the wind, and measure 
its depth as soon after it has fallen as possible. As 
soon as the frost is off the ground, let a number of 
spaces, each one rod square, be marked off contiguous 
to each other; then as soon as the snow is off, let one 
rod square be sowed with one gill of plaister, and the 
square rod next to it which we will call No. 2, be left 
without any. At the time of new moon in April, let 
No. 3 be sown with one gill of plaister, and leave No. 4 
without any. At the full moon sow No. 5, and leave 
No. 6; and so on, at the time of new and full moon in 
May and June; then let the grass on all the ground be 
cut in one day, and let the weight of each square be se- 
parately noted. 
Care should be taken to weigh the hay on all the 
squares as nearly at the same time as possible, so that 
one may not be dried more than another; and that the 
quantity of plaister sown be accurately measured. In¬ 
deed, perfect accuracy in all the different steps which I 
have detailed is all-important. I should like to point 
out the points which I expect would be settled by the 
experiments, but my paper is already full, and I must 
close by saying that for the sake of uniformity, each 
experimenter should select stiff clay,—not black muck, 
nor heavy loam; but clay. Respectfully thy friend, 
N. N. D. 
REMARK. 
A compliment of a bound volume of the Cultivator will be 
made to any gentleman in each or either of the eight districts, 
who will carry out the suggestion of our correspondent and 
send us the result.— Cond. 
A Bird Story. 
Milton, Ulster co. N. Y. July , 1839. 
Friend Buel —I would not have ventured to forward 
the following statement, were it not that the narrator of 
it, Edward Hallock, of the firm of Wm. Hallock & 
Brother, of Milton, Ulster co. is known to thee, and 
known to be of unquestionable veracity. I have heard 
him before express his conviction, that if birds were 
protected and cherished by farmers and others, we 
should never be subjected to the loss of corn or other 
crops by grubs; and that other noxious insects would 
be sensibly diminished. There is a small kind of bird 
(the males nearly black, the females brown,) that is 
noted for being around and following cattle in the field, 
as in the case I am about to detail. Mr. H. says, “ on 
the 26th of the present month, I was ploughing for tur¬ 
nips, myself with one team and my son with another; 
and observing that we were followed by a flock of the 
above little birds, I took it into my head to notice their 
motives, to ascertain what was the attraction, when I 
perceived that their object was grubs. We ploughed 
up plenty of a small white and a large brown or grey 
grub, as well as some in a chrysalis state, and angle 
worms; all of them, excepting angle worms, appeared 
to be acceptable to them; and as the sequel will show, 
they were capable of devouring large quantities. I 
should think that one would make way with at least 
100 per day. I cautioned my son against making any 
motion towards noticing them, in any way to intimidate 
them; as I found they grew more and more bold in 
their honest avocation, and as the land diminished in 
width, they would remain in the opposite furrow when 
not more than three or four feet distant. At length rny 
son spoke cautiously, and said there was one on his 
plough beam. I then stopped the teams and told the 
boy to pick up a grub and show it to the bird that had 
distinguished itself by its tameness. He did so; and 
the bird immediately seized it. Encouraged by this, 
I told him to pick up the next white one, and hold it 
out in his fingers near the ground, crawling down, he 
did so, and the bird came and picked it out of his fin¬ 
gers ! Afterwards he stood up and held out one, and 
the bird lighted on his hand and picked out the worm. 
This was repeated untilit lighted onmyown hand; Irais¬ 
ed it up and applied my cheek to its wing without fright¬ 
ening it away. The next day he was not slow in find¬ 
ing us, and practised the same familiarity, in presence 
of James Sherman, William Hallock and others of the 
neighbors; it came into the cornfield where the boys 
were weeding corn, and actually, without any special 
attraction, perched upon the head of one of the boys; 
it continued these visits until one of the boys in an ad¬ 
joining field, could not repress his inclination to seize 
and hold it. This made him more wary, but he gradu¬ 
ally recovered his confidence.” I communicate these 
facts in the hope they may contribute to produce an exa¬ 
mination into the subject of how far it would tend to 
the agricultural interests, to fall upon some method to 
tame and familiarize small birds, instead of frightening, 
maiming or destroying them. 
Please to concoct something from the above; and 
from the fact of turkey buzzards being domesticated 
in Charleston and the southern cities for scavengers— 
also, that in some province of Germany a premium was 
offered for the extirpation of a kind of bird, and after¬ 
wards doubled to have them back again, on account of 
the insects destroying their wheat. 
E. HULL. 
EXTRACTS, 
Of the Nature and Action of Manures. 
CONCLUDED. 
[From Chaptal’s Chemistry applied to Agriculture .] 
Besides the characteristic of providing plants with 
food, the various kinds of dung possess other qualities, 
which add to their fertilizing powers. Dung as it is ap¬ 
plied to the ground, is never so much decomposed as to 
have ceased fermenting; and from the moment it is mix¬ 
ed with the soil it produces in it a degree of warmth fa¬ 
vorable to vegetation, and serving to guard the young 
plants against the effects of those sudden returns of cold 
in the atmospheric temperature, which are so often ex¬ 
perienced. On account of the viscous fluids which it 
contains, dung is not easily dried, unless it be in contact 
with the air. It therefore preserves the roots of the 
plants in a state of moisture ; and supports vegetation 
at those periods, when without it, plants would perish 
from drought. It likewise contains many salts which 
are transmitted by water to plants, serving to animate 
and excite their functions. The various kinds of dung, 
mixed with earth, may be considered in the light of 
amendments to the soil; and in this view they ought to 
vary according to the nature of the earth to be improv¬ 
ed. Compact soils require to be separted and warmed; 
they require, then, those manures which have been but 
slightly fermented, and that are the richest in salts.— 
Calcareous and light earths require oily manures, which 
decompose slowly, and can retain water for a long time, 
to furnish it to the wants of plants in the seasons of 
drought. 
It is by separating these principles, that we may be 
able to appropriate the various kinds of manure to each 
species of soil and plant; the attention of agriculturists 
is already directed, upon this point, to the composition 
of mixtures of manures, called composts. These are 
formed by arranging, one above another, beds of diffe¬ 
rent kinds of manure, taking care to correct the faults 
of one by the properties of another, in such a manner 
as to produce a mixture suited to the soil to be enriched 
by it. 
For example, if it be required to form a compost for 
a clayey and compact soil; the first bed must be made 
of plaster, gravel, or mortar rubbish ; the second, of the 
litter and excrements of horses, or sheep; the third of 
the sweepings of yards, paths, and barns, of lean marl, 
dry and calcareous; of mud deposited by rivers, of the 
fecal matter collected upon the farm, the remains of hay, 
straw, etc. and this in its turn must be covered with a 
laying of the same materials as the first. Fermentation 
will take place first in the beds of dung, and the liquor 
flowing from these will mingle with the materials of the 
other layers; when the mass exhibits the signs which I 
have pointed out, as indicating decomposition to be suf¬ 
ficiently advanced, it must be carried into the fields, care 
being first taken to mix well the substances composing 
the different layers. 
If the compost be designed to manure alight, porous, 
and calcareous soil, it must be formed of materials of a 
very different character. In this case it is necessary 
that argillaceous principles should prevail; the substan¬ 
ces must be compact, the dung of the least heating kind, 
and the fermentation continued, till the materials form 
a yielding and glutinous paste; the earths must be clay¬ 
ey, half baked, and pounded, or consisting of fat and ar¬ 
gillaceous marl, and mud from the sea coast. Of these 
all the layers must be formed. 
By following these principles in my operations, I have 
completely changed the nature of an ungrateful soil in 
the neighborhood of one of my manufactories. Over 
this soil', composed of calcareous earth and light sand, 
I spread, during several years, some calcined clayey 
earth; and this land, upon which I could formerly raise 
onlv stone fruit, has become adapted to fruit containing 
kernels; and produces excellent wheat, whereas before 
it bore only scanty crops of oats and rye. 
Observations and researches in Agriculture: 
being a farmer’s legacy to his son. 
[From the Farmers’ Monthly Visitor.] 
Prefatory Remarks .—The observations which we in¬ 
tend to make under this head are selected from a series 
of notes and hints which were noted down at the time 
of their occurrence, as likely to be of use to one of my fa¬ 
mily. I felt as if I were bound to make my son some wiser, 
some better informed for my having trod the path of life 
before him. I felt as if I should not comply with my 
conviction of duty if I did not endeavor to make the 
world, or at least my own family, some better for my 
having lived and thought before them. In accordance 
with this conviction of duty, I made, as leisure permit¬ 
ted, such memoranda as I thought may prove useful to 
those of my own family, especially, and perhaps to 
others through them; and from those of them which, 
bear the nearest relation to agricultural pursuits, I have 
selected what follows. Perhaps they may prove to some 
young beginners in husbandry and rural economy what 
they were intended to be to him for whose use and refe¬ 
rence they were principally recorded—a starting-post 
from the goal arrived at by a predecessor in the course. 
1. Ruta Baga:—advantages of this crop. 
You may sometimes be placed in circumstances like 
the following, in which you would hardly know what 
to do, were it not that the season for sowing ruta baga 
gives you some elbow-room. For instance; you may 
not be able to get out all your manure in season for your 
corn and potatoe crops, as a farmer’s work in May ge¬ 
nerally comes thicker and faster than a month later.— 
Rather than summer your manure, or get it out at a 
great disadvantage at the season of corn-planting, plan 
your work so as to have a spot for Swedes to which you 
can apply your manure when you have more leisure to 
get it out. 
When your wheat is winter-killed, or otherwise so in¬ 
jured as not to be worth harvesting, or when other crops 
fail, it is of advantage to have such a resource as the 
culture of ruta baga presents. You may cut your first 
crop of clover, if you cannot spare it as manure, and 
have your land ready early enough for this root crop. 
Another advantage of this crop is the facility of har¬ 
vesting it. A man can harvest fully twenty bushels of 
turnips for one of potatoes. 
The chief advantage of this crop consists, at the pre¬ 
sent time, at least, in the much greater nett profit which 
may be produced from an acre in this than in almost any 
other crop. An average crop is six hundred bushels ; 
but more than double this quantity is, on good authority, 
said to have been obtained. The expense of cultivation 
has been estimated as low as two cents a bushel; and I 
have never heard of judicious management being rec- 
konedhigher than four cents a bushel. As food for hogs, 
cattle, and even horses, three bushels of ruta baga are 
generally accounted of equal value with one of corn or 
two of oats. If you will be at the trouble of making 
the calculations of profit which these data furnish you, 
you will be astonished at the results. Take the average 
crop of hay at two tons to the acre, and the average 
crop of ruta bagasas above stated, and estimating three 
tons of turnips equal, for neat cattle, to one ton of hay, 
and you will arrive at a result almost equally surprising. 
As a minor advantage I may mention, that on farms 
like mine which have not the advantage of a running 
stream where cattle can water themselves, and where 
we are obliged to break the ice or draw for them every 
time they drink—it is in such cases good for the comfort 
and well being of the cattle, and lessens our labor, that 
less water is needed when cattle are fed on this or other 
root crops. It is no small trouble to water cattle as they 
ought to be upon some farms in winter. 
This crop possess other recommendations; these I 
shall not submit to you at present. 
2. Ruta baga.—Time of sowing, and quantity of seed. 
In latitude approaching to 42 and 43 deg. ruta bagas 
may be sown from the 10th of June to the 10th of July. 
I have always aimed at getting them in by the last week 
of June. 
As to the quantity of seed, I am now well convinced, 
that it is much more profitable to sow more seed than is 
really needed than to be more sparing of seed, and be 
obliged to transplant. The time occupied in this opera¬ 
tion will cost more than the extra seed saved. If you 
use only half a pound to an acre, you will have a good 
deal of transplanting to do; whereas if you put on four 
pounds to the acre you will have a great many to hoe or 
thin out, but with regular sowing, no transplanting.— 
Transplanted roots never do well. From eight inches 
to one foot should intervene between the plants. 
3. Soap.—.A hint in housewifery. 
In summer and autumn your soap-grease is apt to ac¬ 
cumulate beyond your immediate wants ; if put away it 
is apt to be devoured by maggots, and if made into soap, 
you may not have pine or other appropiate vessels 
enough to hold it. Having suffered loss from being 
placed in such circumstances, we were much gratified 
with apiece of intelligence accidentally received, which 
relieved us from the disagreeable dilemma. By the boil¬ 
ing your soft soap with salt, about a quart of the latter 
to three gallons of the former, you can separate lye and 
water enough to make the soap hard. After boiling half 
an hour, turn it out into a tub to cool. Cut the cake 
which swims on the top into pieces, and having scraped 
off froth and other impurities, meltagain, (without the 
lye and water underneath of course,) and pour into a 
box to cool. You may then cut it up into bars of pro 
per dimensions for drying. By adding a proportion oi 
resin, well pulverized, at the last boiling, you will have 
yellow soap like that made for market. 
Families moving to the ‘Far West’ or otherwise, 
would find it more advantageous to make their soap fit 
for carriage in this way, than to give it away, or sell it 
for next to nothing. 
4. Starch from frozen potatoes. 
By accident or carelessness we once had a few pota¬ 
toes left in the field so as to be injured by an unexpected 
frost. As we had not our supply of starch for the sea¬ 
son yet prepared, it was thought be-t to take these po¬ 
tatoes, before they thawed, and obtain what starch we 
could from them. They did not yield so much as sound 
ones—perhaps a half. 
